By Geno McGahee
“It goes in and out. Kind of like me.” – Guy
Recently, I’ve been tackling a lot of the horror movies that I have from the early to mid 2000s. I may or may not have seen them before, but own them. That happens sometimes. I buy a DVD and never watch it, but then I get to the point where I see them all piling up and find a movie that I own like “THE CHOKE.” The first mistake I made with this film was watching the trailer. They give away the killer at the end of the trailer, making this whodunit tough from jump. The other mistake I made was watching this at all. This was horrible, but unlike my recent review of THE NIGHT DIVIDES THE DAY, this film has some good things going for it that I’ll go over.
The rock/punk band “The Choke” is starting to catch on. We begin with street interviews of random people and one old guy says “choke on this” and flips off the camera. Well, they get a point there. I don’t think people do interviews like that enough. “What do you think of the recent tornado?” “Choke on this.” That would be a great interview. So, this film began pretty well.
Eliot (Sam Prudhomme) is documenting everything with his camera as his brother, Dylan (Sean Cook) leads the band and has a surprise planned for them. The next concert will be the last concert. Dylan and another band mate, Mike (Jason McKee) are leaving the other two members, London (Brooke Bailey) and Nancy (Thomas Olson) behind. Before the last big show, Mike enters the band’s van and a drill pierces through his chest. There is a killer on the loose.
One of the highlights of the film is Guy (Andrew Parker). He owns the club where the band will be performing and is a real sleaze. He has some great lines, including “your pinky is giving me a stinky” to London, whatever that means. I don’t know what a “stinky” is, but it doesn’t matter. I’m guessing he means an erection but I’ve never heard it referred to as that. Usually when a person shits themselves, they call it a stinky. No, that’s not true either. I’ve never heard that. I don’t know why I just said it.
Dylan’s girlfriend, Jonesy (Wonder Russell), shows up, and they mention that she doesn’t put out. That really doesn’t come into play. I’m not sure why it was a point of focus. There’s also Starr (Bee Simonds), the gal pal of Guy. When Mike doesn’t show up, the show is basically cancelled and everyone is booted out of the club, but the band and a few others get locked inside and a body is found mauled and gutted. The killer is inside the building and it’s one of them…and I know who it is because I saw the trailer!
As the terror happens, Eliot continues to document and this is a cool part of the film. They keep going from the video footage to the actual movie and they blend it rather well. Oh good, I found a good point in this movie after all. Part of the problem is that the group has no emotion. When London finds her boyfriend dead, nobody seems to care. They wince a little, but the next thing you know, they’re sitting around joking. I guess London’s reactions can be explained as shock or maybe chalked up to the fact that she enjoys blood and death, but the others make no sense.
The killer is using musical instruments to take out the victims, which is stupid. A drum symbol and a guitar are used to bludgeon people to death. On top of the stupid killing devices and unnatural acting, there is some comedic relief put in here with Nancy or “Nancy Boy,” the irritable drummer that is a definite bad knockoff of Randy (Jamie Kennedy) in SCREAM. When he starts looking for the killer with his drumsticks as a weapon and doing mock karate, I was ready to shut this movie off and smash the DVD. He is the worst but all of the character act in such an unnatural and unemotional way. Eliot keeps making funny remarks to the camera after body after body are found butchered.
Even though I saw the trailer and knew the killer, the ending wasn’t much of a surprise anyway. The best part of the ending was that I knew it was over. Well, that and the terrible painting of Dylan by the killer that was hanging on the wall. I have to admit, that was rather amusing. He had one of those “I have a stinky” looks. Yes! I now accept stinky as an erection reference.
THE CHOKE is obviously influenced by SCREAM but has none of its magic. The writing is terrible, the acting is unnatural, and the film has this shallow feeling. The film has a great look to it, but it’s all style and no substance. I can’t recommend this one no matter how much I liked Gus. It’s a pass here people.
Rating: 2/10 – choke on this.
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